Solar energy news

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Solar manufacturers led by China’s Trina Solar Ltd. are probably selling at a loss after prices fell to a record low this week. The global spot market price for solar panels fell 2.4 percent to an average of 36 cents a watt on Dec. 28, according to PVinsights. That’s the bottom end of the cost range for most producers in the third quarter, according to Jeffrey Osborne, an analyst at Cowen & Co. Suppliers are expanding capacity this year while demand is expected to slow in 2017, helping to push prices down.

Solar Panels Now So Cheap Manufacturers Probably Selling at Loss - Bloomberg

The current price is also lower than cost estimates from Trina. The biggest supplier of 2015 expected to reduce costs to about 40 cents a watt by the end of the year, from 45 cents in the second quarter, Chief Financial Officer Merry Xu said in an August conference call. The Changzhou, China-based company’s shareholders on Dec. 16 agreed to a $1.1 billion deal to take the company private. A spokesman declined to comment Friday. Some companies’ cost structures remain competitive, even with prices this low. Canadian Solar Inc., the second-biggest supplier, reported costs of 37 cents in the third quarter, down from 39 cents in the second quarter. The company has said its costs are among the lowest in the industry, and it expects to reach 29 cents a watt by the fourth quarter of 2017. Many of its competitors expect costs in the low 30s by then, Osborne said.

Solar Panels Now So Cheap Manufacturers Probably Selling at Loss - Bloomberg

Solar power is now cheaper than coal in some parts of the world. In less than a decade, it’s likely to be the lowest-cost option almost everywhere. In 2016, countries from Chile to the United Arab Emirates broke records with deals to generate electricity from sunshine for less than 3 cents a kilowatt-hour, half the average global cost of coal power. Now, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Mexico are planning auctions and tenders for this year, aiming to drop prices even further. Taking advantage: Companies such as Italy’s Enel SpA and Dublin’s Mainstream Renewable Power, who gained experienced in Europe and now seek new markets abroad as subsidies dry up at home.

Solar Could Beat Coal to Become the Cheapest Power on Earth - Bloomberg

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China intends to spend more than $360 billion through 2020 on renewable power sources like solar and wind, the government’s energy agency said on Thursday. The country’s National Energy Administration laid out a plan to dominate one of the world’s fastest-growing industries, just at a time when the United States is set to take the opposite tack as Donald J. Trump, a climate-change doubter, prepares to assume the presidency.

China Aims to Spend at Least $360 Billion on Renewable Energy by 2020 - The New York Times

China is strengthening its dominance of the global renewable energy industry after increasing investments in green technology overseas to more than $32bn — far in excess of the amounts deployed by any other country. The 60 per cent surge in Chinese capital last year highlights the country’s increasing economic commitment to low-carbon forms of energy even as Donald Trump, the US president-elect, threatens to weaken Washington’s backing for the shift away from fossil fuels. China is already investing more than $100bn a year in domestic renewable energy projects — more than double the US figure — and the latest data show that Chinese money also dwarfs US green finance globally..

Wave of spending tightens China’s grip on renewable energy

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China will install 36% of all global hydro electricity generation capacity from 2015-2021. Similarly, China will install 40% of all worldwide wind energy and 36% of all solar in this same period. Given that the rapidly improving cost competitiveness of renewable energy is driving expansions of renewable energy capacity in an ever-increasing number of countries around the globe—in Europe, India, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America—and given that multibilliondollar renewable energy tenders are being announced weekly, China is performing no small feat by being responsible for over a third of all investment across the three sectors.

Chinas-Global-Renewable-Energy-Expansion_January-2017.pdf

A change in leadership in the U.S. is likely to widen China’s global leadership in industries of the future, building China’s dominance in these sectors in terms of technology, investment, manufacturing and employment.

Chinas-Global-Renewable-Energy-Expansion_January-2017.pdf

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China will plough 2.5tn yuan (£292bn) into renewable power generation by 2020, the country’s energy agency has said, as the world’s largest energy market continues to shift away from dirty coal power towards cleaner fuels. The investment will create more than 13m jobs in the sector, the National Energy Administration said in a blueprint document that lays out its plan to develop the nation’s energy sector during the five-year 2016 to 2020 period. The NEA said installed renewable power capacity including wind, hydro, solar and nuclear power would contribute to about half of new electricity generation by 2020.

China to invest £292bn in renewable power by 2020 | Business | The Guardian

Last month, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s economic planner, said in its own five-year plan that solar power will receive 1tn yuan of spending, as the country seeks to boost capacity by five times. That is equivalent to about 1,000 major solar power plants, according to experts’ estimates. The spending comes as the cost of building large-scale solar plants has dropped by as much as 40% since 2010. China became the world’s top solar generator last year. “The government may exceed these targets because there are more investment opportunities in the sector as costs go down,” said Steven Han, renewable analyst with securities firm Shenyin Wanguo.

China to invest £292bn in renewable power by 2020 | Business | The Guardian

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Large corporations aren’t typically thought of as environmental champions. But these companies now stand to be one of the most powerful advocates for clean energy in the U.S. -- both in Washington, D.C. and in states across the country. A December report by Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) found that 71 of the Fortune 100 companies currently have renewable energy or sustainability targets, up from 60 companies just two years ago. Commitments among Fortune 500 companies have held steady over the past two years at 43 percent, or 215 firms.

Large Corporations Are Driving America’s Renewable Energy Boom. And They’re Just Getting Started | Greentech Media

China is canceling plans to build more than 100 coal-fired power plants, seeking to rein in runaway, wasteful investment in the sector while moving the country away from one of the dirtiest forms of electricity generation, the government announced in a directive made public this week. The announcement, made by China’s National Energy Administration, cancels 103 projects that were planned or under construction, eliminating 120 gigawatts of future coal-fired capacity. That includes dozens of projects in 13 provinces, mostly in China’s coal-rich north and west, on which construction had already begun. Those projects alone would have had a combined output of 54 gigawatts, more than the entire coal-fired capacity of Germany, according to figures compiled by Greenpeace.

China Is Killing 120 Gigawatts of Planned Coal Capacity—More Than All Coal in Germany | Greentech Media

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Renewable power is taking off around the world and fast approaching a tipping point in its development. Consider these recent developments:

• Recent solar-power capacity auctions have come in at record low levels, underscoring how quickly the costs of renewable energy are falling: $0.053/kwh in India, $0.035/kwh in Mexico, $0.024/kwh in Abu Dhabi, $0.029/kwh in Chile, and $0.039/kwh in the United States.
• The fastest-growing job category in the U.S. these days is that of wind-turbine service engineer with median pay around $51,050 a year.
• And in January, China said it would shut 85 coal plants and instead invest $350 billion in renewable sources of energy.

A report from the McKinsey Global Institute published this week, “Beyond the supercycle: How technology is reshaping resources,” estimates that renewables, primarily solar and wind, could jump from 4% of global power generation today to as much as 36% by 2035, reshaping global electricity markets in the process.

The tipping point for renewable energy is nearly here - MarketWatch

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Last year saw global renewable energy generation capacity increase by 161 gigawatts (GW), the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, said on Thursday. IRENA said that, by the end of 2016, the planet's renewable energy capacity had hit an estimated 2,006 GW. It added that its data showed renewable energy capacity grew by 8.7 percent, with 71 GW of new solar energy leading the way. Wind energy grew by 51 GW, hydropower increased by 30 GW and bioenergy 9 GW.

Renewables break records as wind and solar come online, International Renewable Energy Agency says

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Beebe ends his post by pointing out one area of the solar cost structure that has not budged, even as the other components have seen 10x reductions in the past decade: customer acquisition costs. Sales and marketing now represent the largest cost category in a residential system. This pain point becomes even more obvious when you compare customer acquisition costs in solar to other more mature industries like auto sales. In solar, 17 percent of the system purchase price is used to cover the installer’s sales and marketing expenses, while only 4 percent of the purchase price of a car is used to cover sales and marketing. Residential solar customer acquisition costs are now twice as expensive as the actual solar panels, the most important component of the system. This is crazy.

US Residential Solar Is Set for a Radical Makeover | Greentech Media

In many places, it's still up for debate whether a battery project will pencil out economically. On island grids, though, storage already offers a slam-dunk when paired with solar PV to offer firmed power, said Lyndon Rive, co-founder of SolarCity, now known as president for global sales and service at Tesla's energy division. "It makes perfect sense to convert every island out there right now to solar and storage," Rive told the crowd at the Energy Storage Association's conference in Denver Wednesday. "We are doing that." The SolarCity founder made the case that isolated island grids, which largely rely on imported diesel for power, stand to gain immediately from a firmed solar retrofit.

Lyndon Rive: It’s Time for Solar-Plus-Storage to Dominate Island Grids | Greentech Media

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But if we're looking objectively at Tesla's solar business today, it's largely a bust. Tesla is shrinking SolarCity, has already shut down its solar technology in favor of white label panels from Panasonic, and hasn't shown any progress in integrating solar into Tesla showrooms. And with competitors in residential solar going bankrupt, you have to wonder if Musk bailed out his solar company to save himself hundreds of millions of dollars -- and keep from tarnishing his impeccable reputation on the stock market.

Tesla's solar business is largely a bust - Business Insider

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The International Energy Agency's Photovoltaic Power System Programme's latest report (Snapshot of Global Photovoltaic Markets 2016, PDF) found that 75 gigawatts of solar were installed globally in 2016 -- bringing the installed global photovoltaic capacity to at least 303 gigawatts. That equates to producing 375 billion kilowatt-hours of solar power each year, which represents 1.8 percent of the electricity demand of the planet.

The 75 gigawatts added in 2016 was a record. As we've reported, worldwide installed capacity was 51 gigawatts in 2015, up from around 40 gigawatts in the two preceding years. In 2015, there were at least 227 gigawatts of PV cumulatively installed around the world, making up more than 1.2 percent of global electricity demand. Allow GTM to put that into perspective for you. If we rewind to 17 years ago -- the total amount of PV installed in the year 2000 was 170 megawatts. That's megawatts, folks.s.

IEA: Global Installed PV Capacity Leaps to 303 Gigawatts | Greentech Media

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China electricity output from photovoltaic plants rose 80 percent in the first quarter after the world’s biggest solar power market increased installed capacity. Solar power generation rose to 21.4 billion kilowatt-hours in the three months ended March 31 from a year earlier, the National Energy Administration said Thursday in a statement on its website. China added 7.21 gigawatts of solar power during the period, boosting its total installed capacity to almost 85 gigawatts, the NEA said.

China's Solar Output Increased 80% in First Quarter - Bloomberg